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German ExpressionismFilm 19 of 19
M
M - Eine Stadt sucht einen Mörder
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Lang's first sound film, Nero-Film, 1931. Peter Lorre is Hans Beckert, a child murderer. The police hunt him. The criminals hunt him because the raids are bad for business. He whistles Grieg's In the Hall of the Mountain King. Lang cuts the two manhunts against each other until they look like the same office. The speech at the end is not a twist. It is the film asking what you want done.
In two programmes
The end of the line: real streets, a real Berlin, and the murderer's shadow falling across his own wanted poster before you see his face. The kangaroo court turns the audience into the jury. That is the movement's last trick, and its best.
A whistle before a face. Lang builds the film on Grieg heard offscreen, on a city that hums, and on the silence just before something happens. Almost no score; every sound belongs to the world. The blind balloon seller hears the tune, and the film has taught you what it means.
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